A polarizing film that is an essential optical member for a liquid crystal display device is obtained by disposing, using an adhesive, a polarizing element between protective films such as a triacetyl cellulose film whose surface layer having been treated with an alkaline. The polarizing element is obtained, for example, by uniaxially orienting a polyvinyl alcohol film impregnated with a water soluble dichromatic dye or a dichromatic pigment such as polyiodide ions in a warm aqueous boric acid solution, by forming a polyene structure by means of a dehydration reaction after uniaxially orienting a polyvinyl alcohol film.
However, when two sheets of such polarizing elements or polarizing films are disposed so that the respective absorption axis will be perpendicular to each other, there occurs a problem of the light leakage, so-called the view angle dependency of the polarizing element or polarizing film as the observation point is tilted from the front direction to a direction different from the direction of the respective axis because a polarized light passed through an incident side polarizing element or polarizing film can not be sufficiently absorbed by an emergent side polarizing film. This phenomenon has greatly affected the view angle characteristics of the liquid crystal display device using various liquid crystal cells such as the vertically aligned nematic (VA) type, in-plane switching (IPS) type and bend nematic (OCB) type.